Sunday, 5 March 2017

Let's Brew - 1970 Drybrough Continental Lager

Just realised that I forgot to post a recipe yesterday. In a way, I'm glad I did, because I only just found this intrgiuing little devil.

I'm just polishing off the last few recipes. While I was, I noticed that I'd not properly looked at some of the late Drybrough records. That's when I spotted this.

It's also a little preview of the book, this being a featured recipe. The rest in the book text. Enjoy.

This beer started as a bit of a puzzle. Mostly because I couldn’t read the name. Something ending in “–tal” was about all I could make. I had to go through just about every photograph before I found a legible one.

Looking in the ingredients, it was obviously a Lager. Which was dead pleasing, as I’m a bit short on Scottish Lager recipes. It’s the watery, bland type of Lager I avoided like the plague in my youth. But which now fascinates me.

Drybrough really changed the way they brewed in the late 1960’s. They stopped parti-gyling and they started brewing multiple recipes. Funnily enough, it’s just after the company was acquired by Watney Mann. I’m sure the two events can’t have ben unconnected.

They also started brewing some new beers: a Brown Ale, what looks like a Mild Ale and this Lager. Quite a big change for a brewery that had basically only brewed Pale Ale for three or four decades. They also simplified their recipes, doing away with most proprietary sugars.

There’s not a lot to this recipe. Just lager malt, flaked maize and English hops. Oddly, some of their other beers brewed around this time contained Hallertau. While the Lager had all English hops. I’ve guessed the varieties. You can substitute any English hop that was around then, like Northern Brewer or Bramling Cross.

As for the mashing scheme, I’ve reproduced it exactly as in the brewing record. It lists four temperatures which are presumably a complex step mash. I’m not sure they had the right equipment to decoct. If you fancy having a go at a decoction, please do.

This period of Drybrough’s records don’t give any fermentation details. My guess is that they pitched in the mid 50’s F and cooled it down. Though given that the fermentation only lasted 6 days, they might have fermented it quite warm.